"To see a woman in the hospital lying on the ground and no one does anything to help her - they should go to jail," said Pauline Robinson, a close friend of Esmin Green, who died June 19 after going to the psychiatric ward.

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A shocking surveillance video shows Green, 49, falling off her chair and convulsing. Several staff members see her but do nothing. More than an hour passes before anyone helps her.

"I'm going to put it in the hands of American law," her daughter Trecia Harrison said by phone from the island of Jamaica. "But I can tell you this: That hospital, it needs to be closed down."

Four staff members, including the hospital's director of psychiatry and the head of security, were fired and two were suspended in the scandal. The city is investigating whether to press criminal charges.

State Health Department records show Kings County Hospital received 56 citations between Jan. 1, 2005, and June 30, 2007. Many of them were for "incident reporting" and "patients rights."

On Feb. 14, 2005, the hospital was fined $22,000 for two incidents, including the beating of a patient by a staff member.